I watched the
Inspiration Mars press conference yesterday. Dennis Tito, aerospace engineer, entrepreneur and most famously, world's first space tourist, is spearheading the effort to launch a private manned flyby mission to Mars in 2018. The goal is to take advantage of a favourable planetary alignment to send two humans, one man and one woman, within 100 miles of the Martian surface, then slingshot them back to Earth. The entire mission would take 501 days. The risks involved in this mission cannot be overstated. There will be no abort option. The crew will be subject to cosmic radiation for a prolonged period of time and the re-entry will be, by far, the fastest ever for a manned spacecraft. All of this will be done on a shoestring budget from private donors. Only the Americans would have a hope in Hades of pulling this thing off. I wish them well.
-Rognar-
4 comments:
It's a suicide mission but you would live on in space history forever. Even if I was older and had no kids I don't think I could do it. My marriage would never survive being trapped with each other for 500+ days. I'd be reaching for the airlock after about 7 days I'm sure.
I think my wife and I could handle it (the woman is a saint). But yeah, I think it's a suicide mission too. The re-entry seems to be the biggest obstacle. The capsule will be coming in like a meteorite. Ka-Boom!!
"Monkeys? You think a monkey knows he's sittin' on top of a rocket that might explode? These astronaut boys they know that, see? Well, I'll tell you something, it takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially one that's on TV. Ol' Gus, he did all right." - Chuck Yeager in the movie "The Right Stuff"
I'm not married and based on that alone I don't qualify but I do have some experience being cooped up (submarine service including ballistic missile deterrence patrols).
I do know one thing, Tito calls me and offers me a slot I'm going. I don't think I'm a special kind of man but some things are worth betting it all.
If I had no kids, I would certainly consider it. I'd really have to trust my support team though. I would like to have at least some hope of survival.
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